Posts tagged “hand-tinting”

Still taking it easy and enjoying just learning a few new techniques and passing them along as I go. This image is from Shorpy.com of Miss E. G. Winship (this links to the original image if you would like to try out the technique yourself) from 1909 who was a 22-year old living in Philadelphia. I have always enjoyed tinting old images so when I found a class on this on Udemy, I decided to check it out. Udemy has many classes and runs specials often where the whole course is offered for $10 or $15 (note – you do not get to download the videos but will always have access to them if purchased). This course was called Photoshop Design: Colorize Historical Photos in Photoshop by Phil Ebiner. Previously I had posted a How to Colorize an Old Photo blog which uses a similar technique as this class – using Solid Color Fill Adjustment Layers to add localized color to each of the different components in your image. This course was pretty basic, but he had one thing that really caught my attention. He showed you how to layer several different fill colors on top of each other to achieve natural looking skin, mainly to the face and a few other skin skin areas. Phil also supplied color charts to use for different skin tones if the one he suggested does not match up correctly. By being able to apply localized color to the face and parts of the skin, it gives a more accurate effect to the overall colorization. This can be very beneficial if trying to hand-tint personal scanned images. With the course information I was able to create a fairly simple Photoshop Action to set up the different colored adjustments layers for a quicker set up.

The image below was completed before the one above. I felt like the one above is the more traditional look and is probably closer to what the dress color was and possibly the skin tone. By just changing out the Solid Color Fill Adjustment Layers, the dress and hair color could easily be changed out. The skin and background took a little longer. Part of the problem with this image is that it is not of a very high resolution. The initial image had to be adjusted to get a nice size to work on. Some parts of the image are hs lost detail and there is not a lot that can be done. On the top image, some hand painting on the upper left bodice area with a regular brush tool to add more detail and remove some of the really dark shadows. On the one below, this was not taken.

If no info was available on the young lady or where she was from, a story could have been built into the image. That is what I attempted to do. By giving her a green toned dress, red hair, and a different skin tone, I hoped a bit of Irish flare could be given to the image. Also, Anthropics Smart Photo Editor was used to add an interesting border and vignette to the image. I forget I have this plug-in, but it contains lots of great effects including many border and vignette effects, which is one of the reasons I bought it a few years ago.

Another one of my blogs on this same subject uses a special brush to paint in the color on New Layers instead of using Solid Color Fill Adjustment Layers. Sometimes it is easier to do this on a new layer if a problem comes up with the adjustment layer color or definition of a subject. (See my How to Hand Tint a Vintage Image and Create a Brush To Do This blog.) The brush was used on a couple layers after I had finished colorizing to touch up parts that were not smooth, especially in the arms. Also the Mixer Brush was used to blend in areas where the photo was a little grainy looking on the skin. It seems like you could spend as long as you want to get the image looking really great. If the image is scanned, the resolution of the photo can be set higher and a better quality colorized image will result. If you are interested in trying out this technique, check out both my Colorize blog and this course. It is actually a lot of fun to do! Well I guess that is all for this week. Later!…..Digital Lady Syd

Loved this vintage image from Shorpy.com, my favorite site for the old historical images, taken in 1902 at the National Cash Register Company‘s restaurant in Dayton, Ohio. I wonder what they are talking about? I found an older tutorial on hand-painting a vintage image and decided to share the technique. Previously I created a blog called How to Colorize an Old Photo blog using Solid Color Adjustments Layers, but this blog technique produces a more subtle hand-painting result. I guess this is why I have a hard time getting rid of my old resources – you never know when something will catch your eye!

Below are the basic steps to create this effect:

1. This technique was found in a book called Special Effects – Restouching and Restoration by Tim Daly in the Chapter Restoring Hand Tints. Basically he suggest you scan your image, or in my case I downloaded an image from Shorpy’s – select an image that is more light-toned rather than dark-toned. As you can see in the original below, this fits the criteria. To lighten your image a little more, use a Levels Adjustment Layer and move the center tab called the Midtone slider so image is lighter.Also, be sure to go to Image -> Image Size and check out the size and resolution of the image – the B&W above was set to a Resolution of 980 ppi and a Width of 0.837 inches and Height of 1.521 inches. The image was changed to a Width of 8 inches and a Height of 6.627 at a Resolution of 300 ppi.

2. Next need to create a brush to use for adding the color tint. Open the Brush Engine (Windows -> Brush). Select a 45 px soft round brush. Down the side check the Buildup section – this turns on the Airbrush effect in the Options bar (or can just turn on the Airbrush icon in the Option Bar itself). Smoothing should be on in the Brush Panel. In the Options Bar, set the Mode to Color – this preserves the underlying image detail while painting. Set Opacity to 40% and Flow to 100% to start. At this point, I would definitely save the brush by clicking on the Create New Brush at the bottom of the brush Panel (it looks like a piece of paper with a bottom corner folded up). Since there are changes in the Options Bar, I also saved the brush as a Tool Preset – just go to the first (Brush) icon in the Options Bar, click on the down arrow next to it, and select Create New Tool Preset Icon and name it. The brush will now appear at the bottom of your list with the correct settings for both the Brush Panel and the Options Bar.

3. Now the image should be turned to a sepia color, or whatever overall tint that is pleasing. For me a Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer was opened and the Colorize box was checked – the Hue was set to 27, Saturation 18, and Lightness +9. A stamped layer was created on top (CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+E) to incorporate the two adjustment layers, and the layer blend mode was changed to Color and the Layer Opacity can be lowered to taste.

4. Time to paint using using the new brush. Open the Swatch Panel, select a color, and paint in your image – I painted directly on the image above, but individual layers for each color is a much better way to control the color shades (as done in the tint image below). If the color is too bold, reduce the Opacity and the Flow sliders of the brush in the Options Bar. Tim Daly recommended starting to tint with the smaller areas with similar colors first. In my image above, only the focal point area was painted.

That is all there is to it! Very fun and relaxing. To finish up, add your own effects to the image. In the above, on a New Layer a hatch texture was set added to the brush in the Brush Engine and it was set to Multiply blend mode. The table cloth was then painted to give it a little subtle pattern effect. This is where you can add some of your own creative ideas into the image. A Color Fill Adjustment Layer set to white was used to make the hatched brush texture really white. Adjustments Layers can add all kinds of interesting effects to these tinted images. This image also used Topaz (see sidebar at my Tidbits Blog for website link) Texture Effects – based upon their Crisp Morning Run preset. Just added the oval Border and a white Color Overlay with a low 0.31 opacity.

TIP FOR WORKING WITH VINTAGE GRANULATED IMAGES: You might notice that some of the vintage images have a lot of grain in them, especially in the shadows. A great way to remove this problem is to use a Noise Reduction filter, then add a black layer mask and paint back over just the really obvious areas where the noise is bad. In the above, the faces had a lot of noise. Topaz DeNoise 6 was used, but Nik’s Dfine plug-in which is now free, or Photoshop’s Camera Raw filter-the Detail Section could be as effective. Just adjust to where the really noisy areas look good even if the whole image gets blurry. By adding a black mask (CTRL+I in the white mask) to this layer and using a very low opacity regular soft round brush, paint with white back in the really noisy areas.Thought I would show you what a landscape type image looks like color-tinted. This image is of the Raleigh Hotel in Miami Beach, Florida on March 4, 1941. I think one of the reasons I am enjoying this technique is that it gives me a chance to really look at the image and see a story in it. To me this is really fun – and it gives a vintage postcard effect to the image. I look at all the people at this resort back during WWII and wonder who these people are – and this hotel is still very popular. What is also interesting about this image is that it is not all hand tinted – mainly just the foreground area has been painted in. Below is the original image so you can see what can be done with this type of image.

Instead of a sepia tone image to begin the process, this one used a cyan-toned tint. Since the image detail is rather obscure the further back one looks, it is not so noticeable that the color is missing. In fact, the palm trees in the center back were actually lightened a little by clipping a New Layer on their layers where the color was applied and light dots of white were applied to softly blend them into the background just a little. Also after painting this image, Topaz Glow was used to make the tint colors stronger in the image – the cyan was to be the main color since it reminds me of resorts and warm water. Topaz Lens Effects was used to add a slight Golden Reflector effect from the right side to play on the palm tree fronds and a very soft cyan vignette was placed around the image as a last step. This image used 22 layers for the different colors and objects. Several mistakes were made using the wrong color and it was easy to just clip (ALT+click between the layers or click on the first icon at the bottom of the panel) a Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer to the layer and change the color to match perfectly. Therefore I would recommend using separate layers for colors. And do create the brush – it is very useful for this technique!

Hope you give this a try on one of your scanned black and white images or an old vintage image. Lots of fun here! Have a great week!…..Digital Lady Syd

Not sure I have blogged on photo restoration much. This week I am going to show you how to colorize old images to give them a nice tinted effect. This image is of my Grandmother Francis Carlton Smith and says it was from 1913.I learned how to do this from photo restoration specialist Suzette Allen when she appeared on Creative Live a while back. This is how she uses Solid Color Adjustments Layers to add color to her images. I might add the skin effect is also from her video but that is another blog as it is a bit tricky. In this case various Solid Color Adjustment Layers were used for her skin, then hair, and finally the dress and background. In all 7 were used. I would suggest you first download Suzette Allen Color Guide Faces photo – a free download from her website – before beginning. Frequently I open up this image in Photoshop to use for sampling skin and lip color. Nik’s Color Efex Pro was used at the end and Flypaper Textures Nik Color Efex Presets White Buttons was applied. The Frame was added in the Smart Photo Editor plug-in using the white border with gray stroke classic border. The Solid Color Adjustment Layer technique is the same as in the workflow below.

The cute kid image was downloaded from one of my very favorite websites, Shorpy Historical Photo Archive (this links directly to the original black and white image and there are some pretty interesting comments on the playground itself), and was taken in New York City on July 14, 1941. A few months ago I did a little vintage blog on how to make a nice old photo really look vintage. (See How to Add More Vintage Feel to An Old Photo blog.) (Also check out my Related Blogs below for how Calvin Hollywood uses Solid Color Adjustment Layers.) So here is the basic workflow on how to colorize your old images.

1. First I sharpened the image overall using Topaz (see sidebar at my Tidbits Blog for website link) Detail 3’s Overall Detail Light preset, but you can sharpen anyway you want. Do any major adjustments to the photo before starting the colorization process.

2. Select a Solid Color Adjustment Layer. Fill the layer mask with black by clicking on it and CTRL+I to fill with black.

3. Change the blend mode of the adjustment layer to Color and the layer opacity to 32%. Name it so you can tell quickly where it was used.

4. Suzette suggests starting to colorize with the skin first. Open up her Color Guide Faces in Photoshop. In the image click on the foreground swatch and then click in the guide and click on a skin tone to use in your image.

5. Go back to your image and double click on the Solid Color Adjust Layer color box in the Layer Panel which brings up the Color Picker. By dragging your cursor outside the Color Picker, it turns into an eyedropper to sample the Foreground Color in the swatch at bottom of the Toolbar. Your adjustment layer will now have the the skin tone color from the guide.

6. Click on the black mask and paint with a brush with a white (brush changes from the colors to black and white when painting in a layer mask). Set your brush to white and 12-30% brush opacity in the Property Bar and add a little hardness to the brush so you can get some fairly close edges. You will now see the color being painted on the skin area.

7. When finished with that color, duplicate the layer by CTRL+J. Now rename this layer to indicate the new area you will be working on and fill the layer mask with black again (CTRL+BACKSPACE in the mask). Go back to the Guide and choose another skin tone for the Foreground Color – back in your photo sample the Foreground color and start painting in white on the mask again.

It really is an easy process once you do it a couple of times. I created separate Solid Color Adjustments layers for each skin area, along with hair, dress color, background colors, etc. To keep everything straight, Groups were created (highlight the layers and press CTRL+G to group them) with those titles since there were 10 or 11 Solid Color Adjustments Layers in each group.

The nice thing about this technique is that it is easy to go back and change a color if it does not look right. By double clicking on the color swatch of the adjustment layer, you open the color picker where several different colors can be selected – a live update will show in your image as you hover over each color. This is a really easy way to add believable color to an image.

The rest of the image effect was created using a New Layer and doing some skin smoothing by sampling nearby colors to smooth some of the splotchiness, and by applying Nik Color Efex Pro’s Glamour Glow, Film Efex-Faded, Image Borders, and Brilliance/Warmth to get the final result. This image actually took quite a while to complete, but the localized colors in both the clothes and skin tones did create a nice result from a rather dull and cluttered black and white image.

Not all images work well for this type of technique – you just have to experiment to see how it looks. It can be a bit tedious to really get a good result, but overall it can really make your vintage images pop. It is fun to try and figure out what your long lost relative may have looked liked in color. Give this technique a try – works great on any type of image. I find I am really enjoying trying this out on my old photos. Have a great week!…..Digital Lady Syd

This week I am just adding a few little topics for a change and I hope you will find something useful in them. Enjoy!

The Trapeze Artist! Creating a Simple Painterly Border

I just had to post this little Cloudless Sulphur Butterfly hanging almost upside down in a breeze on one of my pink pentas – it was amazing to watch! This image was really cropped down tight in Lightroom to focus in on the butterfly. Her body, legs and antennae were sharpened using the Adjustment Brush. Besides the basic tone adjustments, a Lightroom preset I created from David duChemin’s older Refining Your Vision in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom book (still a great read) that I call “duChemin Classic India” preset was applied. It contains just the Split Toning Panel using these slider settings: Highlights Hue 50 and Saturation 60, and Shadows Hue 266 and Saturation 35. It creates a really nice soft feel and I have used it many times. I love the simple things! In Photoshop I added Isabella Lafrance’s Facebook overlay called Bedrock set to Hard Light blend mode at 100% layer opacity that can be downloaded under her Freebies tab. I think her overlays are some of the best around! In a Layer Mask, the butterfly was painted back to make it sharper.

Okay – I cheated when making the light pink painterly border (not the sharp edge border on the outside) and took the next few steps directly from Creative Live’s 30 Days with Dave Cross – Day 7 on Layer Masks that had been running around the clock. Love this website and love Dave Cross! This process is a very “simple to do” look. A composite layer was placed on top (CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+E). Next a New Layer was created and placed underneath the composite layer, then filled with white (Edit -> Fill -> White). A layer mask was added to the composite layer and inverted to black (CTRL+I inside mask). Now to create the border, I used a Stipple Brush set to 30% opacity at 100 pixels to create a first pass at the border – painted in white on the layer mask. Dave used a Chalk brush in his tutorial. Then a Mixer Brush was used to make interesting edges around the image. (I used Dave’s Mixer Brush setting of a Round Fan set to Load and Clean, and load was set to Wet 100%, Load 90%, Mix 60% and Flow 100%, and do not check Sample All Layers.) You could stop here, but I decided to add a Color Fill Layer in pink to create a pink effect in the border just made – the Layer Mask was copied from the composite layer by clicking on the mask, holding ALT, and dragging to the Color Fill layer mask. Next the Properties Panel was opened and the mask was inverted, and the Density set to 48%. A Levels Adjustment Layer was added on top to put a little contrast back into the image. The last step was another composite layer where I added my SJ Thin Double Edge Frame layer style for a second finishing frame – sampled from the image to get the pink and green colors. Dave’s border can get a really nice painterly feel This can be a very creative border process – it was easy and a lot of fun!

Creating a Vintage Image

While listening to a Creative Live rebroadcast (this is a great site to have running in the background when playing around in Photoshop – just click on their Watch tab and select a show), I created this image. This is not really a tip, but is an example of how to combine old images, clip art, text, and textures to get a unique, and rather in-vogue look. I am a big fan of The Old Design Shop and am constantly downloading so many of Julie’s vintage images – this is a real treasure site if you love vintage items which I do! For this image I actually started with a New Document set to 10 inch X 10 inch at 240 resolution and then added in the American Agriculturist magazine cover from November 1879. It was too nice an image not to do something with. (On her website just click on her image to make it bigger on your computer and then right click and select Save Image As to download.) I took this image into my new document. First selected the beige using Select -> Color Range (see my How to use the Color Range Command with CS4 Through CC 14.1 blog) and exited to show a selection. Changed the swatch to black as foreground color and added a new layer; then CTRL+Backspace to delete the beige in the clip art and set the layer to Color Burn blend mode. A brownish Color Fill Layer was clipped (ALT+click between the layers) to the turkey art. Erased some of the edges out. Next I brought in Clip Art flowers from Dover Floral Bouquets CD Rom clip art 029 as a jpg – went to the Color Range Command and Sampled the white setting the sliders to Fuzziness 200 and Range 4 and Localized Clusters checked. Back in Photoshop a Layer Mask was created and it looked kind of nice, so I left the dark square around the flower and left the lines white. A darker color was added using a darkish brown Color Fill Layer clipped to the flower layer. 2 Lil Owls Workbook Bonus Texture Set 17 (see my Tidbits Blog sidebar for website link) was added as a background texture underneath the above layers. A New Layer was added directly above the texture and Brush Lovers 1st 2000 brush was used in upper left corner (not available anymore but any nice flower petal would work). Shadowhouse Creations Text Brush 9, which is a nice script, was used and set to 39% opacity. A Layer Mask was added and the text was removed from the cover magazine and clip art flower areas. A greenish Color Fill Layer was clipped to the text to make it green. A New Layer on top and Kim Klassen’s squiggle 2 brush was painted on top of magazine cover. Kim Klassen’s Cloth & Paper touch1 was used as an overlay on top and changed to a light peach color. The last step was a Levels Adjustment Layer. This was a lot of fun to create – almost like doodling in Photoshop! I am not sure you can go wrong with any creative approach to this.

Lightroom/ACR Hand Tinted Portrait

This is a very simple technique I first saw from a video called Adobe MAX: Expressive Painting in Photoshop that Jack Davis (Photoshop Hall of Famer and very creative artist besides being the Wow Book guy!) did for the Adobe Max 2013. He does a beautiful vintage image of his mother using this technique. It involves first taking a color image in Lightroom or ACR and turning it into a black and white, digitally or actually scanning an old image that is already in black and white. The trick is to select the Adjustment Brush and set the color swatch to a color, then paint in different areas of the image with new brushes using different color swatches. You do not have to be real exact with your colors – that creates some of the charm of the image. Jack basically does this hand-tinting in just a few minutes. Needless to say it took me a little longer – maybe 20 minutes. For Aliona’s picture, 8 different pins were created each with different colors and slider characteristics. Remember when using the Adjustment Brush sliders that the Exposure and Contrast sliders are equivalent to Luminance in the HSL tab, and the Color Swatch is your Hue and Saturation. By combining these settings, you should be able to get the exact colors you want. For Aliona’s eyes and lips, the Clarity and Highlights sliders were adjusted to get the look I needed. A light pink tone was used on her cheeks. The lips used a darker tone of pink. Also a Radial Filter was used to emphasize her face. That was basically it – turned out very beautiful and unique. Take a look at the video for some other great tips from Jack too!.

I hope you enjoyed my short little blogs post this week. It is fun to try some little techniques and see what you get! Now go have some fun!…..Digital Lady Syd